The philosophy of life, and philosophy of language, in a course of lectures

by Friedrich von Schlegel

With respect to legislation, however, and the legislative authority, an important co-ordinate power may, according to the existing constitution of a particular state, be vested in the other correlative members of the body politic. The preliminary deliberation, the first sketch or the initiation of a law, may not, perhaps, proceed in every case from the supreme head of the community. In other states, again, the law must emanate from the free choice and individual will of the monarch, or at least the introduction of it, since he can not of himself alone make and carry out the whole. This is a point, consequently, on which it is extremely difficult to draw the boundary line, which must in no case be transgressed or deviated from—in so far, that is, and so long as there is no question about any thing more than a simple co-operation or co-ordinate deliberation upon the proposed laws. But still in every case the final sanction, by which a law becomes properly the law, or by which it is annulled or repealed, must be reserved to the royal prerogative, otherwise the monarch ceases at once to be supreme.

Even the prerogative of proclaiming war and of concluding peace is, if perhaps we may be allowed so to say, a judicial function on a large scale, and applied to the external relations of states. It is, in short, nothing less than a judicial act. And in this light it will appear to every one who does not regard it as a mere act of arbitrary caprice. This, however, it never ought to be. For it is, as it were, a verdict on the existing relations of right and wrong between two neighboring states. But in as much as both parties, in point of right and law, are in so far equal, that they refuse to recognize in common any higher judge, an absolute state of violence necessarily ensues, a struggle of power follows, until at last, in the change of circumstances, the relations of justice are restored by mutual consent. The party that first proclaims war becomes, in this process of trial by battle, the judge of its own cause. And if by the fearful issue of the combat it is taught to see its own injustice, then must it either make due concessions, or, at very best, by calling in the mediation of a third and neutral state, it must constitute it the judge by whose decision it is ready and willing to abide.

The usual insignia of the kingly dignity, the scepter and the throne, are only the signs of judicial power, as it were, promoted one degree higher, and can be historically traced up to the judge’s bench and staff. The crown alone remains as the peculiar and exclusive symbol of the highest earthly dignity. And rightly is it called a splendid burden. For while it exalts him who is called to wear it above all earthly dependence and responsibility, and exempts him from all the ordinary relations of human life, the heavy weight of this splendid ornament reminds the wearer of the grave reckoning and the strict account he will have to render to God, as the Supreme Judge of all—who is the source and sum of all justice and righteousness. For this serious and solemn responsibility is received from God, together and at the very same time with the crown.

Quite different in signification was the symbolical ensign of the old emperors in the middle ages—a sword pointing to the four winds or cardinal points of heaven. It alluded to the peculiar idea and the peculiar constitution of that dignity. For in this respect it was not simply a distinction of power, of rank, or of title, between the imperial and the kingly dignities. It involved a total and essential difference between the ideas and objects of these sacred and anointed potentates—between the elective emperor and the hereditary king, duke, or prince, although it was from these alone that the former could be duly and regularly elected. For the emperor was looked upon as armed with the sword of all Christendom to be the defender of the whole system of European states. Accordingly, as the representative of the union of several states, he bore this ensign of his imperial office.

To this ancient idea of a Christian empire we shall again have occasion to revert in the further examination of the idea of a political state and its Christian community. We shall meet with it once more in that section of our inquiry which will be occupied with the ruling principle of right and polity in a system of states as a body, and also in the mutual relations of its several members. In this section we shall also show that this principle must be either absolute, that is, one where one or more of the several members of the union exercises a superior and preponderating influence, or one artificially constituted and dynamical, i.e., a system of the so-called balance of power. And here will naturally arise the question whether, for such a confederacy of moral and civilized societies and nations, a less imperfect and higher, but common principle of Christian justice might not be found and established? For any system of mutual confederation, whether absolute or founded on the artificial relations of the strength of its respective members, is in any case defective and imperfect, whatever may be the ground of union, whether founded on the internal constitution of the states, or derived from the physical consideration of their geographical position and neighborhood.

According, then, to that divine principle and Christian foundation of the state which I have attempted to derive from the symbolical signification of life and the symbolical destiny of man in his relation to God, the highest authority of the state—the king, or generally the monarch, as well as the spiritual functionary, or the priest—are the vicegerents of a highest and divine power, whom they represent on earth. The only difference between them is, that the latter has chiefly to represent and to set forth God as teaching men, but at the same time as warning and commanding them in this revelation of His will, and as promising and as livingly dispensing to them His grace, while the former is the representative of the Omnipotent Lawgiver and Judge, who governs the world with justice, and will by no means clear the guilty. According, therefore, to the true Christian notion of these two powers, both of them—the civil no less than the spiritual—possess a representative character, which, however, deviates very widely from the ordinary notion of the representation and a representative constitution, or, rather, forms a decided contrast to them.

And what contrast can, in fact, be more decided than that which such a representative power and dignity as belongs to the ministering of the divine grace to the soul and spirit, or the dispensing of divine justice to the whole earthly life, forms with that thing of horrible memory,[53] which has been called a representation of the people, or the systems which have been similarly designated? But even if it could be satisfactorily proved that a people, like the invisible essence of the Deity, could be represented, it is open to very grave doubt whether this is really possible in the method usually adopted. According to the principle of this kind of popular representation, where the whole adult population are entitled individually to vote, the election becomes, as it were, a lottery, and even the political winners thus determined, or the ballotted members, become so many influential units in one branch of the legislative body and for a limited period. In respect, however, to the principles and sentiments, the predominant character and spirit of a people, those who are thus chosen are the representatives not so much of the whole nation as of the reigning passion of the moment, or the spirit of the times in its restless agitation. For when thus resolved into its constituent atoms and numbered off in succession, a nation is reduced to an elementary mass. But like all that is thus elementary, when thus decomposed, and fermenting in its process of dissolution, it assumes a destructive tendency and turn. At least it ceases to form an organic whole, an individual. It is only when a state or a nation historically lives on, further develops and vitally maintains itself in its organic members, i.e., in its several estates or essential corporations, that it can be said to form a living whole, and to be, as it were, one great individual.

It is only in this sense that there can be true representatives of a people, who, if the expression is allowable, are its true historical men. It is in them that the spirit and character, the general leaning tendency, the peculiar style of feeling, sentiment, and thought of a nation, in any definite period or periods, finds its most decided and loudest expression. Rarely, however, is this attained in a system of elective deputies or representatives, which is liable to many passing and accidental influences, and, indeed, in and by itself has no connection with it. Scipio and Cato would be representatives of the Roman character and spirit, even if they had never been invested with public authority and had lived their whole lives in exile. And in the same manner purely intellectual natures may often stand for such historical characters and representatives. Horace and Tacitus most assuredly occupy the same relation to their respective ages as the two former did to theirs, and this, in truth, quite independently of any subordinate rank or political dignity and influence which either the one or the other possessed in peace or war. Cicero, indeed, would have been all this in an equal degree, and, perhaps, still more so, if, keeping entirely aloof from the civil contentions of his day, for which he was little suited, he had devoted himself to the acquisition of a purely intellectual and literary influence.

However, it is not every famous author or every brilliant political speaker that can in this sense be justly regarded as historical characters. Besides that energy of talent which creates an epoch, and which is, indeed, the primary and essential condition, certain other properties of character are required, certain sentiments and principles vividly carried out and realized in life and action. But this is a combination which is rarely found. A peculiar sphere of practical influence does not form an immediate, nor, indeed, a necessary qualification of such a character. Still it is evident that a writer who truly merits such an appellation must be something more than a mere man of letters or an artist. The effects he produces on the minds of men must be both truly national and historical. Such alone are truly and properly the historical representatives of a people—the men of their nation.

As for those other elective representatives already mentioned, it is only when they belong to a particular estate and corporation, and represent it, that they can promote the permanent interests of this organically constituted whole. For it is out of such organic members that the national existence gains its true, i.e., its historical development. But this is impossible whenever they are chosen by the individual votes of the entire population. Such a splitting of the whole political body, as it were, into its constituent atoms, is either in itself an elementary decomposition or must eventually lead to it. Even a republican constitution, if it be well and wisely ordered, will be based principally on corporations or organic division of estates, rather than on any principle of numerical majority and equality, which, taken as a general element, invariably proves, as history testifies, sooner or later, a positive source of anarchy.